MUMBAI, Nov 7: England will put aside memories of last week’s humiliating Stanford Twenty20 $20 million challenge defeat as they prepare for a tough one-day and Test series in India, skipper Kevin Pietersen said on Friday.

“This series is going to be very difficult,” he told a news conference ahead of the one-day and Test series. “India is playing fantastic cricket right now and it is tough beating India in India.

“We’ve been playing good cricket as well, we beat South Africa 4-0. We’re obviously looking to improve.”

The batsman, on his first full tour as captain after taking over from Michael Vaughan during the home series against South Africa in August, said England were not thinking about gaining experience for the 2011 one-day World Cup to be played in the sub-continent.

“My thoughts are on this series,” he said. “[The World Cup] is so far away it’s not in my thoughts right now.”

England were denied the chance to climb to second spot in the one-day rankings in September when the fifth and final match of the South Africa series was abandoned due to rain.

They are third in the rankings and the hosts fifth.

Last week, the Stanford Superstars crushed England by 10 wickets in the winner-take-all Twenty20 challenge in Antigua after the select West Indies team bundled out England for 99.

Pietersen had blamed the defeat on poor preparation.

“We went into that not knowing what was going to happen, and we learned a lot of things,” he said on Friday.

“I’m a great believer in trying new things. You make mistakes some times ... you bump your head once or twice, but then you learn.”—Reuters